Dual Monitor Setup
Discussion
If you've got young eyes, I'd go with 27" at 2560 x 1440. If you're less young, 1920 x 1080 or 1200 at 24".
Play around with https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/technol... and some screens you've got access to and assess what ppl you find comfortable.
You can scale the display in Windows if things are too small, but especially with a relatively tight budget, there seems little point buying more resolution than you need.
Play around with https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/technol... and some screens you've got access to and assess what ppl you find comfortable.
You can scale the display in Windows if things are too small, but especially with a relatively tight budget, there seems little point buying more resolution than you need.
xeny said:
If you've got young eyes, I'd go with 27" at 2560 x 1440. If you're less young, 1920 x 1080 or 1200 at 24".
Play around with https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/technol... and some screens you've got access to and assess what ppl you find comfortable.
You can scale the display in Windows if things are too small, but especially with a relatively tight budget, there seems little point buying more resolution than you need.
I use dual 27" 2560x1440. I cant get on with 1920x1080. Plenty of real estate for RDP sessions, browsers and other appsPlay around with https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/technol... and some screens you've got access to and assess what ppl you find comfortable.
You can scale the display in Windows if things are too small, but especially with a relatively tight budget, there seems little point buying more resolution than you need.
What work will you be doing on it?
Personally I’m looking to get a 1440p 32 inch monitor. About 93 dpi, the same pixel density and text size as a 24 inch 1080p monitor. I read a lot of text, so unscaled text is really important to me.
I currently have 24 inch 1080p and 27 inch 1440p monitors and find the 1440p 27 inch monitor renders text too small to be comfortable to read. 24 inch shows text at a comfortable size, but doesn’t show a lot of it, so I have to scroll around a lot.
I think 4k is a weird no mans land for monitors bigger than 24 inches. They aren’t sharp enough to be ‘retina’ quality. Text definitely looks fuzzy when zoomed, or titchy at native resolution. There is a reason why Apple go for 5k at 27 inches and 6k at 32 inches.
Hopefully we with start seeing higher resolution monitors soon with recent standards like HDMI 2.1 supporting resolutions greater than 4k becoming the default and it won’t just be Apple out there by themselves producing super sharp displays… discounting exotica like Dells 8k display that needs dual Display port connections to function at full resolution and 60hz. Hardly doable with your average consumer laptop and also very pricey. Was 3.5k last time I looked.
Personally I’m looking to get a 1440p 32 inch monitor. About 93 dpi, the same pixel density and text size as a 24 inch 1080p monitor. I read a lot of text, so unscaled text is really important to me.
I currently have 24 inch 1080p and 27 inch 1440p monitors and find the 1440p 27 inch monitor renders text too small to be comfortable to read. 24 inch shows text at a comfortable size, but doesn’t show a lot of it, so I have to scroll around a lot.
I think 4k is a weird no mans land for monitors bigger than 24 inches. They aren’t sharp enough to be ‘retina’ quality. Text definitely looks fuzzy when zoomed, or titchy at native resolution. There is a reason why Apple go for 5k at 27 inches and 6k at 32 inches.
Hopefully we with start seeing higher resolution monitors soon with recent standards like HDMI 2.1 supporting resolutions greater than 4k becoming the default and it won’t just be Apple out there by themselves producing super sharp displays… discounting exotica like Dells 8k display that needs dual Display port connections to function at full resolution and 60hz. Hardly doable with your average consumer laptop and also very pricey. Was 3.5k last time I looked.
Edited by wyson on Sunday 5th December 22:45
Also buy the best panel you can afford. You are going to be looking at it 8 hours a day! It’s definitely not something to skimp on.
My 27 inch 1440p monitor supports 99% Adobe RGB. It cost about £500 and is at the bottom rung of professional colour accurate monitors.
My 24 inch 1080p monitor cost about £130.
It honestly shows in the picture quality. The blacks look blacker, contrast is much better, the uniformity across the panel is more consistent with the more expensive monitor. On a really sunny day, if I start boosting the brightness and contrast, the expensive monitor just looks brighter, the cheap one becomes more fuzzy, the colours start going off etc.
Like with anything in life, you get what you pay for. If you go for a pair of monitors that cost £200 each you are going to get something much more akin to my cheaper monitor.
I’ll probably look to spend about £500 again for my 1440p 32 inch monitor on something like this:
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/dell-32-usb-c-moni...
My 27 inch 1440p monitor supports 99% Adobe RGB. It cost about £500 and is at the bottom rung of professional colour accurate monitors.
My 24 inch 1080p monitor cost about £130.
It honestly shows in the picture quality. The blacks look blacker, contrast is much better, the uniformity across the panel is more consistent with the more expensive monitor. On a really sunny day, if I start boosting the brightness and contrast, the expensive monitor just looks brighter, the cheap one becomes more fuzzy, the colours start going off etc.
Like with anything in life, you get what you pay for. If you go for a pair of monitors that cost £200 each you are going to get something much more akin to my cheaper monitor.
I’ll probably look to spend about £500 again for my 1440p 32 inch monitor on something like this:
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/dell-32-usb-c-moni...
Edited by wyson on Sunday 5th December 23:18
I used to use 3 screens at 1920 x 1080. One of them was a cheap and cheerful 24" LG. It was/is absolutely fine for typical office work. I bought it several years ago now, and I think it was around £100. I've recently switched to just using a single 4k 32" Samsung (a bit under £300) for a remote desktop connection to the office and the laptop's native 3200x1800 for other stuff. I was thinking of going to two 4k before it dawned on me that that would have been two and a half times as much desktop space as my original set up, which would have been completely pointless. The new Samsung works really well for me, primarily doing software development. I've always liked compact hi-res setups; never had problems reading smallish text so long as the DPI is high enough.
Mutts said:
I use dual 27" 2560x1440. I cant get on with 1920x1080. Plenty of real estate for RDP sessions, browsers and other apps
At default scaling, 27" 2560 x 1440 is on the verge of being too high a PPI for me to comfortably use. I'd guess 5 more years and it won't be workable.1920 x 1200 (the extra height makes a significant difference) at 24 " is comfortable, and two of them is about enough to work on. For a relatively tight budget there's no point spending more money on PPI that you'll immediately discard with display scaling.
I have 2x28” 3840 x 2160 at home at 2x24” 1920x1080 at work. I vastly prefer the screen real estate at home. I find myself scrolling up and down code way more in the office. It’s also harder to have two files open side by side without needing to scroll horizontally
We are also a Mac shop. Being able to use the hi dpi modes means the screens at home look much sharper (I’m not running at effective 4K as my eyes are not that young!)
We are also a Mac shop. Being able to use the hi dpi modes means the screens at home look much sharper (I’m not running at effective 4K as my eyes are not that young!)
Just try and match whatever two monitors you get. Ideally, two identical monitors or at least the same screen height and number of lines.
I used to have 2x 19" Dell 5:4 screens and a central 22" Dell 16:10 screen (all cheap, ex-office stock). Worked really well to produce a very usable desktop and actually matched up quite nicely in terms of aesthetics, height and pixel density.
Also, could be driven effectively by my old 1060 card and for gaming I generally just used the middle widescreen (or streamed to my 1080p telly) anyway.
These days I have a G9 ... awesome bit of kit, wouldn't go back to dual/triple screens given an option. But you do need to spend money on a decent gfx card (hard to find these days) and a good Ergotron monitor arm unless you have a massive desk to easily fit the stand. Definitely you need to put in a lot of moolah to get the best out of it.
I used to have 2x 19" Dell 5:4 screens and a central 22" Dell 16:10 screen (all cheap, ex-office stock). Worked really well to produce a very usable desktop and actually matched up quite nicely in terms of aesthetics, height and pixel density.
Also, could be driven effectively by my old 1060 card and for gaming I generally just used the middle widescreen (or streamed to my 1080p telly) anyway.
These days I have a G9 ... awesome bit of kit, wouldn't go back to dual/triple screens given an option. But you do need to spend money on a decent gfx card (hard to find these days) and a good Ergotron monitor arm unless you have a massive desk to easily fit the stand. Definitely you need to put in a lot of moolah to get the best out of it.
Thank you for all the advice and comments.
What about something along theses lines x 2:
https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/pc-monitor...
I appreciate it is nothing special, but has an IPS panel and per some of the posters 1920 x 1080 on a 24 could be the way forward.
Does the refresh rate matter for work (it is more a gaming thing?).
This one has the USB hub that someone mentioned earlier:
https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/gaming/pc-gaming/gam...
What about something along theses lines x 2:
https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/pc-monitor...
I appreciate it is nothing special, but has an IPS panel and per some of the posters 1920 x 1080 on a 24 could be the way forward.
Does the refresh rate matter for work (it is more a gaming thing?).
This one has the USB hub that someone mentioned earlier:
https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/gaming/pc-gaming/gam...
HHmmm Been looking at this recently too. Currently got a 24 & 28 screen set-up.
But want to take advantage of the PS5 4k so was thinking about a new main screen, and might as well go up to a 32 inch..? Why not. Although I don't want curved, hate them, had one for a week and just didn't get on with it.
So I am thinking of the S32A800 - https://displaysolutions.samsung.com/monitor/detai... - 4K 32 Inch 60 Hertz(I think?) - unless anyone else knows of a 4k 32inch not curved for a decent price, i.e less than £400.
jj
But want to take advantage of the PS5 4k so was thinking about a new main screen, and might as well go up to a 32 inch..? Why not. Although I don't want curved, hate them, had one for a week and just didn't get on with it.
So I am thinking of the S32A800 - https://displaysolutions.samsung.com/monitor/detai... - 4K 32 Inch 60 Hertz(I think?) - unless anyone else knows of a 4k 32inch not curved for a decent price, i.e less than £400.
jj
1080p on a 27 inch monitor doesn’t look great, unless you need the huge text? They have these in my office, always found them a bit of a cheapskate choice.
You could get a 4k 24 inch screen too. It will pixel double to 1080p, so will look decently sharp.
That would be my second choice after a 1440p 32 inch monitor.
Would help if you stated the software you use. Otherwise shooting in the dark. Esp. your question regarding the high refresh rate.
You could get a 4k 24 inch screen too. It will pixel double to 1080p, so will look decently sharp.
That would be my second choice after a 1440p 32 inch monitor.
Would help if you stated the software you use. Otherwise shooting in the dark. Esp. your question regarding the high refresh rate.
Interesting subject
I currently have a Surface Go (12.5" screen which is used solely for teams and Teams calls)
It's docked and connected into my dock are a 24" Samsung (provided by the company) and an old HP E231 Elitedisplay
The Surface screen runs at 2256x1504 and is perfectly fine for the job it does
The other 2 are both running 1920 x 1080. One tends to be used for Email and web based activity (CRM, Edge etc.) whilst the other is predominantly running Sage One through Chrome. Add in office docs used across both to some extent
I've been toying with idea of an ultrawide to consolidate to a single screen but don't really know enough about what I would need tbh so advice would be greatly appreciated
I currently have a Surface Go (12.5" screen which is used solely for teams and Teams calls)
It's docked and connected into my dock are a 24" Samsung (provided by the company) and an old HP E231 Elitedisplay
The Surface screen runs at 2256x1504 and is perfectly fine for the job it does
The other 2 are both running 1920 x 1080. One tends to be used for Email and web based activity (CRM, Edge etc.) whilst the other is predominantly running Sage One through Chrome. Add in office docs used across both to some extent
I've been toying with idea of an ultrawide to consolidate to a single screen but don't really know enough about what I would need tbh so advice would be greatly appreciated
I have dual 27" 2k screens, I'm 52, crap eyes, and they are great. You just tell windows to enlarge icons and text a little. It's a standard Win 10 setting (scaling). It's called "Make Everything bigger" in scaling settings. I run it at 125% (Apps and text).
All the benefits of 2k but with nice large text.
I'd not buy 24" monitors when 27" are similar money and you can have 2k. Horses for courses.... of course
All the benefits of 2k but with nice large text.
I'd not buy 24" monitors when 27" are similar money and you can have 2k. Horses for courses.... of course
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